There were nights I lay awake doing arithmetic that never worked out, rent against wages against the cost of diapers and formula, and could not see how any of it would hold together.

But it held.

It held because I made it hold, one impossible month at a time, and because every time I was ready to give up, I would look at the small sleeping shape of my daughter and find, somewhere, one more reason to keep going.

She was the reason.

She was always the reason.

I did not resent her for it, not for a single day, though people sometimes assume a young mother in my situation must have.

The opposite was true.